Archive for the ‘Features’ Category
After years in the wilderness JIMMY CAUTY and BILL DRUMMOND, the men behind The KLF who once burned ElmiIlion, returned as 2K with a 23-minute performance at The Barbican. It featured the striking Liverpool dockers repeatedly shouting, ‘F— the millennium’. Why? JOHNNY CIGARETTES hasn’t got a clue. K sera, sera: STEVE GULLICK
“The only reason we did this was to promote our album, but we’re not doing one. We couldn’t fit it into 23 minutes.” 2K
We’re not in Westminster any more,” thinks a middle- aged middle-class man in a suit as he sits interviewing two middle-class, middle- aged men in stripy pyjamas, covered in Dettol they’ve just splashed over each other. Lying in a single bed together. With make-up smeared over their faces and messily painted grey hair. And with large ivory rhino horns crudely taped to their foreheads.
He is a reporter for Channel 4 News. They are 2K, alias King Boy D and Rock Man Rock, alias Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, formerly The KLF, The K Foundation, The Timelords, and The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu. Last week he was interviewing Conservative MPs’ wives. Last year, they were on an expedition to plant an effigy of Elvis at the North Pole. As they have so poignantly asked, ‘It’s I 997 – What the f— is going on?’ (more…)
| publishing info | Source | | NME | |
| Date | | September 27th, 1997 | |
Additional Informations John Reed
The KLF are possibly British pop’s last great urban guerillas. More than anybody else, and that includes hardcore and speed-metal bands, the KLF has subverted the whole idea of what a pop band is, how a pop single should be made, how it should be marketed and most importantly how it should sound. They have never been orthodox in their methods and have remained resolutely independent in their means. Like the best of English punk and post-punk music, the KLF stand for a working-class ethic of do-it-yourself subversion that has paid off dividends in chart success. Moreover, dozens of releases have provided a stimulating sifting ground for any collector interested in promo, white label copies, various limited editions and deletions. And this is only complicated by their host of pseudonyms, from the scandalous JAMs, Disco 2000 and onehit-wonders the Timelords through to the ambient house of Space and the Orb. (more…)
L’ITINÉRAIRE DES DEUX SBIRES DE KLF VA DEVENIR UNE VOIE “D’ÉCOLE”: UN PASSÉ AU SEIN DU PETIT MONDE MERVEILLEUX DU ROCK’N'ROLL, UN DÉGOUT DE LA CHOSE, UNE RÉDEMPTION PAR LA DANCE MUSIC. EXPLICATIONS ET PROSPECTIVES PAR JAY RÉMI.
KLF, des initiales qui ne veulent rien dire et pourtant on les retrouve de plus en plus souvent sur toutes les lèvres. S’agit-il d’un groupe arty mythique ? De cerveaux manipulateurs ? De timides génies ou tout simplement d’obsédés de musique pop malins ? Probablement un peu de chaque et certainement plus encore…
Bill Drumond : “On n’a jamais eu de plan d’action, on fait les choses comme elles se présentent. Moi et Jimmy (Cauty, ancien guitariste de Brilliant) sommes ensemble depuis 1987. Seulement comme on n’est pas signé par une multinationale, et qu’en plus on n’a pas de manager, personne ne nous aiguille dans une direction déterminée. On fait ce que l’on a envie de faire, quand on a envie de le faire. Tu trouves nos deux 45 tours sur l’album mais cette décision est la nôtre, pas celle d’un responsable en marketing. C’est comme les remixs (ils ont déjà retravaillés des morceaux de Depeche Mode et de Pet Shop Boys), ça nous touche qu’on nous en propose mais on prend encore plus de plaisir à les refuser “. (more…)
“You could put quotation marks around this whole story and call it definitive. As far as The KLF is concerned, it’s as definitive as anyone’s ever got. In interviews, rock papers always ask things like how me and Jimmy got together; we felt what we were doing that weekend was getting to the heart of things like an interview never could. The way we feel now is that we never want to sit down and do an interview again.” Bill Drummond, The KLF
“The KLF have invited you to join them in celebrating The Rites Of Mu this summer solstice, during which the fall of mankind may be reversed, returning him to the garden where the rest of creation waits…” (more…)
The KLF revel in their anonymity, but the success of ‘What time is Love?’ last year blew their cover, And as 1991 begins, their new single ‘3am Eternal’ looks like establishing them for an eternity in the charts. Phil Cheeseman (words) and Phil Ward (pics) synchronise watches etrnal flame
1990: Britain’s most ioldiosyncratic pop group, The KLF, finally have a hit with a remix of their 1988 single ‘What Time Is Love?’. But it doesn’t make any difference; the nation is still confused as to their identity and purpose.
With the release of another remix of a previous single, ‘3am Eternal’, plus an album to follow, as well as a revival of their previous incarnation The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu (infamous for losing a copyright court case with Abba) for another album and a single called it’s Grim Up North’, it seems unlikely that the confusion will clear. Add to that their temporary stint as The Timelords, who hit Number One in 1988 with the supremely ludicrous Doctorin’ The Tardis’ (not to mention ‘The Manual’, a book of how to make a Number One single, that followed it), and the picture becomes very murky indeed. Record Mirror split the terrible twins Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty and interrogated them separately on the meaning of KLF. (more…)
| publishing info | Source | | Record Mirror "page 24-26 & cover" | |
| Date | | January 12th, 1991 | |
Text IAN McCANN Photography SCHOERNER
As The Timelords, they once went to number one. Under various names, they’ve explored samples and cut ups, rave records and ambient house, usually moving on before getting the credit they deserve.
SHEEP
Now The KLF are onto something new. Are you ready for the acid revival? None of this makes sense and it is hard to know where to begin, but let us start with a wet day in 1989. Two men are wrestling with some sheep, trying to get them to stand in a straight line for a photograph. They will not. These are not stuffed, Kicker-clad specimens as used by Liverpool favourites The Farm, but live, wriggling, stinky ones, soaking wet and covered in red mud. On the side of each animal, sprayed in dye, is the logo KLF. “We’re not pranksters,” says one of the men. “Everyone says we’re scamming, but we’re not.”
Welcome to the mental world of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. Also known as The Jams, Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu, The KLF, The Timelords, Rockman Rock and Kingboy D, Disco 2000, Space, The Orb, and a few other things besides. Don’t expect to unravel their story, least of all don’t expect me to do it. They’ve got no idea themselves how this disaster, this happy accident has come about.
The bare minimum you need to know is this: Drummond and Cauty make music, films and fuss. They have hits. They have fiascos. None of it is logical according to the regular pop scheme of things, even if it seems logical later. Their work is a selection of ideas, and if the creators have a masterplan, they must have spilt coffee over it. This is a story, as they themselves would have it, of men out of their depth.
(more…)
What if Syd Barret had never left the Floyd?
| publishing info | Source | | Vox | |
| Date | | November 1997 | |
MTV M-Cyclopedia's entry on The KLF
Im Grunde geht es im Rock’n'Roll um Subversion. In der Wirklichkeit jedoch ist Rock’n'Roll genauso wohlerzogen wie der kleine Prince William (abgesehen natürlich von den gelegentlichen Wochenendgelagen). KLF jedoch haben die Subversion auf die Spitze getrieben und sind deshalb als eine der faszinierendsten Bands in die Geschichte eingegangen. Zunächst waren sie die Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu (1987), gegründet von Bill Drummond und Jimmy Cauty, die seit einem Jahrzehnt im Musikgeschäft waren. Ihr erstes Album hieß What The Fuck Is Going On?. Ein Jahr später wurden sie die Timelords und hatten in GB eine Nummer 1 mit “Doctorin’ The Tardis”. Die Nummer enthielt Samples von Doctor Who und Musik von Gary Glitter. Dann veröffentlichten sie im Selbstverlag das Buch The Manual (Or How To Have A Number One Without Really Trying). Kurz darauf gründete Cauty sein Nebenprojekt The Orb und zusammen mit Drummond machte er das Duo KLF. Es erschien ihre “Stadium House Trilogy” – “What Time Is Love”, “3 am Eternal” und “Last Train To Transcentral”, die sich alle international gut verkauften. Als nächstes nahmen sie einen Titel mit Tammy Wynette auf, verbrannten eine Million Pfund (und filmten es für die Nachwelt), legten bei der Verleihung der Brit Awards 1992 ein totes Schaf ins Foyer, verließen das Musikgeschäft und verliehen der Turner-Prize-Gewinnerin Rachel Whitbread 40.000 Pfund für das schlechteste Kunstwerk des Jahres. Außerdem nahmen sie einen Titel auf, der erst veröffentlicht wird, wenn der Weltfrieden gefestigt ist. (Der Titel wartet noch.)
I was there when (Page 1)
Über art-mentalists Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond torched £1,000,000 as their roadie, Gimpo, filmed the whole thing…
“I hadn’t heard from Jimmy and Bill for a while but in August ‘94 they called to asked me to come with them for a few days. I didn’t ask why. They took me to an industrial estate in south London where they had a million quid in £50 notes, some nailed to wood, some in £50k bundles.
I knew something was going down.We went to a nearby airfield and lifted the suitcases of cash into a little plane. At one point they even left me watching them while they fucked off for a cup of tea! When we flew to Scotland all I could think was, ‘If they do something stupid with the cash I’ll kill them!’.
We got the ferry over the Isle of Jura and checked into the local hotel. I had a few whiskys and went to bed early cos I thought we’d be climbing fucking hills or something daft next morning. Instead, they woke me at 1am and told me to get dressed.
I was there when (Page 2)
We went to a boathouse where Jimmy handed me a video camera and said, ‘Film this!’ They got the money out and broke open the bundles of notes and chucked them on to the lit fire! I was still pissed from the whisky so I was just laughing, it took an hour to burn it all. Earlier in the day me and a journalist had been joking about stealing the cash so while they were burning it I kicked a bundle to one side. I thought, ‘Fuck, I could buy a house with that’ but I ended up putting it back. They’re my mates and I’m not a fucking scally!
People still ask me about the money but I’d only have put it up my nose anyway. Bill and Jimmy are both pretty skint these days so I’m sure they must have some doubts.”
| publishing info | Source | | Mixmag | |
| Date | | December 2005 | |
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After years in the wilderness JIMMY CAUTY and BILL DRUMMOND, the men behind The KLF who once burned ElmiIlion, returned as 2K with a 23-minute performance at The Barbican. It featured the striking Liverpool dockers repeatedly shouting, ‘F— the millennium’. Why? JOHNNY CIGARETTES hasn’t got a clue. K sera, sera: STEVE GULLICK
